


Antemundane

by hauntedd



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 16:19:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5633101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedd/pseuds/hauntedd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Sarah, there was Alison and there was Cosima.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Antemundane

Alison clutches the side of the makeshift table, once she’s sure that— _thing_ has left the field, back to whatever hole that she had crawled out of in the first place. This isn’t how they do things, but if that gutter rat is telling the truth (and it’s a pretty big if), Beth is dead and standard operating procedure isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Staring at the pink phone, she scowls. She’s cleaned the knife twice now, and Vivian will be in soon to check on her. She’s the perfect kind of assistant, in that she’s only there for show, but right now Alison needs time and she doesn’t have it.

“I should have gone with Meera,” she huffs and angrily scrolls down her small list of contacts. Her fingers settle on one name after stumbling momentarily over Beth. A dial tone greets her while she waits, her foot tapping anxiously as the tone repeats.

Apparently some of her genetic identicals don’t share her sense of promptness. Perhaps if there had been less weed and more study going on in that program of hers, Cosima would answer the darn phone in an emergency.

And this is most certainly an emergency. A crisis. A calamity.

“Hel—“

“Cosima. I need to talk to you,” Alison interrupts, not waiting for Cosima to get a word out. For a scientist, she has no sense of urgency about the things that matter. If they hadn’t met, she wouldn’t believe it was possible that they shared the same DNA.

“Didn’t we just talk? And it’s way too early for a crisis with the PTA, Ali.” Cosima mumbles, still on the verge of sleep, likely having fallen back into it after she’d hung up the phone. Alison mentally calculates the difference in time zones and purses her lips. That shouldn’t matter; it’s not early, really. It’s maybe 9 a.m. in Minnesota which is a perfectly acceptable time for a twenty-eight year old to be awake. 

She breathes into the phone and decides the best way to handle this is to be direct, even if this is the last thing that she wants to be direct about. “I met another one!”

“Another clone?”

“You know I don’t like that word.”

“Okay. You found another genetic identical,” Cosima clarifies and Alison exhales. The word clone is the worst of them all, because it makes her feel like a lab rat in an experiment. Beth had helped to come up with the less offensive terminology. It’s just one of many things that Alison appreciates about her.

“Wait, was she British?” Cosima asks, interrupting her thoughts. It’s best not to think about Beth right now—that woman is clearly a liar even if Beth isn’t picking up on either cell phone.

“Yes! And dressed like a cheap hooker at a biker bar. Have you met her too? I’m telling you, Cosima, I don’t trust her. Or her face—it’s too severe.”

Alison ignores the small voice inside her head that reminds her that they all have the same face. They may all share things, but she is the one who has perfectly manicured eyebrows and just the right amount of purple eyeliner. Her face is different, tasteful.

“Whoa, okay. You need to chill out.”

“Chill out? You’re telling me to chill out? Beth is _dead_ and that—thing says that she killed herself. But that can’t be true. Beth isn’t dead, right?”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. She can hear Cosima rustling papers or pacing—she seems like the type of person who might pace—in the background. “I—I dunno, Alison. None of this makes sense. The German is dead, but—“

“The German’s dead? When was anyone going to tell me?”

“Shit. Sorry. Yeah, she was shot right in front of Beth and ever since then Beth’s been acting weird—well, weirder than normal. I think it really got to her.”

There's a pause and Alison can hear Cosima faintly coughing in the background. It's getting chilly, it's important to take more vitamins this time of year. She makes a mental note to send her some.

“I thought you wanted to be kept out of the whole briefcase thing. That’s what you told me like fifteen minutes ago. And Katja was the briefcase thing,” Cosima replies and Alison taps her foot against the cement. Since when do her— _identicals_ —take what she says literally? 

“I do. I did. But a death, Cosima? That’s important to know. What does that mean for Beth? What about my family? I can’t have a killer just roaming the streets, Cosima. Beth had better have her act together. Donnie isn’t reliable in a crisis.” Alison can’t even imagine a world in which Donnie would know about this situation in the first place, but she’s certain that if a reason ever did come up, then he would be utterly useless. He can’t even handle vomit. Or her mother.

“I mean, I talked to her last night—only it wasn’t Beth. Well, it was, and then it wasn’t.”

“Explain.” 

“It was weird, we were talking about the briefcase and then some chick with a British accent gets on the phone,” Cosima says and Alison narrows her eyes as she grips the phone tighter.

“So you think that Beth wants us to… what? Engage with her?”

“I don’t know, Alison!” 

“Didn’t Beth say that someone was killing us off? Maybe it’s her.” 

“That’s just a rumor, and even if it’s true, I don’t think she’s the killer, alright?”

Of course Cosima wouldn’t think that. There could be a terrorist with their face and Cosima would want to bring it in and raise it like a puppy. It’s absurd. If there’s a killer, it could be anyone, including anyone with their face staring back at them. “You would say that. You’re too trusting.”

“I’m not too—whatever. We need that briefcase, alright? And if she has it, we have to engage.”

“Would you listen to yourself right now? She could be the one that Beth warned us about,” Alison hisses, not liking the way that this is going at all. “She’s lucky I didn’t have my gun.”

“Whoa. When did you start carrying a gun?”

“A few weeks ago; Beth taught me,” Alison explains and then stops. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes and she bats them away angrily. “If she’s dead, she’ll never—“

She stops herself before she says another word. There’s a large lump in her throat and Alison knows if she finishes her thought, a sob will escape despite her best efforts. And she can’t have that with the children just outside.

“Look, Alison. We can worry about that later. I need the briefcase. It could be the key to everything,” Cosima sighs and Alison can hear the girl start pacing through the phone.

“No. No. Beth is the key to everything. She holds us together. She can’t be dead.”

“Maybe she isn’t? The only way we’re going to know for sure is if we talk to the new one,” Cosima tries and Alison tenses at the thought. Absolutely not, there is no way that she will entertain another conversation with that lying, dirty, gutter punk.

“I am not talking to that… that thing!”

“Alison! She’s one of us.”

“Unless she’s the killer—“

“Technically, that still means she’s one of us.” Cosima says and Alison can sense the smirk that is likely playing at the corners of her mouth as she does it.

“Cut the crap Cosima.” Alison snaps, not in the mood for one of Cosima’s jokes. Beth is still—well, it isn’t the time for comedy in any event. “She is not one of us.”

“Alison—“

She inhales sharply and considers her next words. Arguing with Cosima is pointless, especially when she may just be the only one of them that she trusts. They’re just going to have to agree to disagree for now, and when she’s proven right, then she can have the satisfaction of telling Cosima that she told her so. 

“Look. I did what you and Beth wanted when she made contact. You know, that whole cloak and daggers production that you both get far too involved in.”

“Cloning is hella illegal, so it’s not exactly unnecessary.”

“Exactly. We’re lab rats, Cosima. So I don’t know why you insist on making this a game. Regardless, I told her to wait for a call. Your call. This is now your…doo doo to fix.”

“Doo doo? Really?” 

“Honestly Cosima—I think she thought that I was you. She said the German had my address. That was never part of the deal.”

“Katja was a hacker. That’s how she found Beth in the first place. If you’re listed—“

“Of course I’m listed in the phone book.” Alison interrupts and imagines throwing the knife into the wall. It would be so easy to just hurl it straight into the wood, over and over again. It might even release some of the stress that is building inside of her. But with the way her day is going, one of the kids will open the door and she’ll have to explain why she threw a knife at an eight year-old. 

“Well, then that’s where she got your address from.”

“And now this hoodlum has it. She’ll likely try to rob me blind.”

“No. She won’t. But we need that briefcase, and she needs answers before it’s too late,” Cosima reasons and all Alison can think of is the ominous tone attached to the words too late. As if today isn’t horrible enough, between the dirty hoodlum and all that bad news and Ainsley winning the lead in the latest musical, Cosima has to go and add a vague threat to the mix.

“Too late for what, Cosima?”

“Another German situation.”

“Fine. You call her then,” Alison says, waving her hand in the air. “Initiating someone into this is not my responsibility.”

“That’s a bad plan, Alison. She’s met you. You need to talk to her,” Cosima argues, and Alison hears a thud through the earpiece. “Plus, I’m about to get on a plane.”

“You’re getting on a plane? To where?”

“Uh, to Toronto? For the briefcase?”

“Right, I’m sorry. I forgot in the aftermath of—“

“Does she have a name?” Cosima interrupts, shifting the conversation back to the current crisis.

“Sarah. She didn’t give me a last name, but I didn’t ask.” Technically, she’d been idly threatening her with a knife, but Cosima doesn’t need to know that. “I wouldn’t even know how to get ahold of her.”

“She had Beth’s phone, right? Call that.”

“And say what, Cosima? Hmm? I don’t do the c-word talk.”

“Just—get her to your place, around nine? I’ll float the whole clone thing so you don’t have to.” Cosima compromises and Alison almost agrees to it until she realizes where, exactly, this meeting will take place.

Her home? That is most certainly not going to happen. She will not allow her children and her husband to know that she’s a freak. Not just because the children will talk, but also because normalcy is all that she has and it’s all she’s ever wanted. Alison will not compromise that for this latest twist in her life story.

“My home? With Gemma and Oscar? And—and Donnie? Absolutely not.”

“Where else can we go, Alison?” Cosima sighs, adopting what Alison assumes is the voice that she uses in the classroom, when she’s serving as a T.A. It’s not unlike the one that she uses when she’s explaining to Oscar why he has to wear pants and put the seat down after he’s done going tinkle. “Sarah already knows where you live, and with Beth… unavailable, and Katja murdered, we don’t have a ton of options.”

Alison is quiet as she considers what Cosima has said. She’s right; as much as she hates to admit it, in that there is nowhere else that’s currently available where the three of them can have this conversation. Cosima’s hotel would be too suspicious; Beth’s apartment runs the risk of meeting up with her boyfriend, Paul, and with a killer running around, abandoned warehouses are just asking for it. She’s seen enough movies to know that much, anyway.

“I’m carrying my gun.”

“Wait, what? No. No guns,” Cosima stammers and Alison rolls her eyes. She’s far too liberal for her own good. A properly cared for firearm is perfectly acceptable, especially in these circumstances.

“That’s the deal, Cosima. We can meet at my home, but only if I’m armed. I will not take a chance with my children’s lives.”

Cosima’s quiet for a moment, and Alison wonders idly if she’s lost the connection. Their burners don’t get the best service, but they’re untraceable, which is the most important aspect of having a disposable phone. 

She hears a zipper slide closed and Cosima grumbles into the phone. “Fine. Deal.”

The door creaks open and Vivian peeks her head in. She’s been in here for far too long and her absence has been noticed. “Well, then. I’ll make the arrangements. See you tonight. Have a safe flight,” Alison rushes into the phone and immediately hangs it up.

“Is everything alright?” Vivian asks and Alison finds herself nodding her head immediately. It’s likely too eager, but Vivian accepts it without question. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do with the kids.”

“It’s time for conditioning, don’t you think? We want the kids to be fast for their first game!” Alison chirps, mentally preparing herself for complaints from some of the parents. But she needs Oscar and Gemma to sleep soundly tonight and to do that, they need to run until they’re exhausted now.

She only wishes she could run, too.

**Author's Note:**

> So I got a little hung up on the idea that while Alison & Cosima have known each other longer than they've known Sarah, we don't get to see a lot of them interacting in the show. So, here's a bit of that from the shed. There may be more of these, like a series, or whatever, as the mood hits but I'm not on any sort of schedule and each can be taken as a one-shot :)


End file.
